Cognitive decline and memory loss are the biggest fear factor for seniors and their caregivers. Frustrations, miscommunications, and strained emotions further cloud an issue characterized by mental haze.

Determining if “senior moments” are consistent enough to affect quality of life and whether something should be done requires communication. It may be failure to pay attention that first raises concern and prompts the need for discussion.

Sometimes seniors become so accustomed to others planning their days that they don’t take much time to focus on the details. A senior may ask a question and then not pay attention to or not retain the answer. Determining the difference is important. Talking about cognitive decline can bring to light what kind of intervention works. It may seem that just encouraging a parent to pay more attention to conversations would fix the problem, but often it helps to check what the senior actually heard by asking, “What did you hear me say?”

Assessing Cognitive Abilities

Your parent's doctor can help assess cognitive issues. Medications are available that offset the effects of brain shrinkage that naturally occurs with aging. Other conditions or medications may be part of the problem.

The following tips give you a starting place for assessing your parent’s abilities and a way to monitor changes and determine when to involve a doctor.

Organize

Buying Dad a BlackBerry might not be the organization answer. First, many seniors are not willing or able to manage new technology. A book-style planner is a better option or a large wall calendar. Your father’s seeming disorganization may revolve around the fact that he never did the planning. Now that Mom’s gone, he has no skill base to rely on, so he calls you instead to find out his schedule for the week. He’s not losing his mind; he just has no tools for organization.

Don’t try to mind-read

Caregivers often develop expert mind-reading skills. They know their loved one so well they anticipate a need or desire ahead of the request. At times this can be great, but encourage your parent to be aware of his needs. This offers a sense of control and the use of practical life skills. You may know that Mom likes to go to the bank once a week, and if she doesn’t mention it, you know to ask. But encourage her mental processing of such tasks.

Plan ahead

Don’t expect your parents to read your mind and follow your mental plan for the day. While your schedule seems logical to you, their brains may not follow your path. Keep a list of planned stops in the car so your parent can look at it as you head across town for the first appointment. Or you can post your list on Mom’s calendar a day or two ahead. If Mom sees you plan to stop by the post office, she’s more likely to remember she needs stamps, instead of waiting until she’s back home to say she needs to go to the post office.

However, if Mom suddenly remembers she needs stamps and you’re nowhere near a post office during a day’s sojourn, ask her to write it on her list for your next planned outing, if there is no urgent need. This also helps with prioritizing and maintaining boundaries with your own time.

Use lists

Women are often more adept at list-making than men because they traditionally keep up with grocery lists and have a skill set that can be applied in new ways even if their grocery shopping days are rare. Find out what worked for them before, and build on the existing skills.

Be consistent, develop patterns

Keeping list-making supplies and the calendar in the same place will ensure that your parent has tools readily available. Referring often to these and their location develops a pattern of behavior to fall back on when “senior moments” happen. Retirement communities often have specified days and times for trips to the grocery or drug store. If you are providing transportation, you can establish similar patterns for your parents.

When you notice that for the last three weeks your father has forgotten Tuesday is grocery day, then you have a sign that a reevaluation is needed. This is better than suddenly realizing Dad is unaware of the days of the week because you’ve been shopping for him.

Acknowledge differences

Your parents’ world is different from yours. Repetition, for some reason, doesn’t seem to bother most seniors. It’s as if seniors cross an invisible line where reviewing the same topics is no longer a point of irritation. Most caregivers haven’t crossed that line, so repeated references to the price of gas, the color of a bush at a particular intersection, old news about a friend, or a daily report of the quantity and consistency of bowel movements may drive you slightly crazy.

But your parents haven’t lost their ability to think. During the aging process, your parents’ minds follow stream-of-consciousness thought patterns each day. While your mind follows new highways opened daily by interactions with other people, theirs may not. Their world is simply getting smaller. Unless they’re interested and willing to push their thoughts by reading and discussing current events, their minds will take the established routes. But red flags arise when those well-worn paths become foreign lands. Being aware of these normal routes your parents’ minds follow may seem boring to you, but if you pay attention, you’ll notice when they change.

This article is excerpted from When Your Aging Parent Needs Care: Practical Help for This Season of Life by Candy Arrington and Kim Atchley (Harvest House Publishers). www.whenyouragingparentneedscare.com